Word: sirhan
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Starting to examine a jury panel of 25 members at the trial of Sirhan Sirhan last week, Attorney Grant Cooper unveiled the defense strategy. "There will be no denial of the fact," he told the first panel member, Aerospace Corp. Employee George Doudle, "that our client, Sirhan Sirhan, fired the shot that killed Senator Kennedy." The admission may have seemed startling, especially since Sirhan has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Cooper made the statement to etch in the minds of the potential jurors a major issue in the case...
...told Doudle that Sirhan would admit only the "mechanical act" of pulling the trigger. The jury, said Cooper, would be called on to consider "not only the act but the intent" before deciding whether Sirhan is guilty as charged. Then he asked: "Now that you have been told the defendant committed the act, would that prejudice you so that you couldn't try him for intent?" Doudle said that it would, and was excused as a juror...
...part, the defense plans to put Sirhan on the witness stand. It will try to convince the jury that even if their client did shoot Kennedy, he bore "a diminished responsibility" for the act. Explains Defense Attorney Russell Parsons: "We ask: Can a man maturely and meaningfully premeditate? If the answer is no, what might otherwise have been first-degree murder could be instead second-degree." Toward this end, the defense will probably call Sirhan's former employer, Food-Store Owner John Weidner, who worried about Sirhan's irrational temper. Sirhan's mother and brothers are expected...
...expected to lead off with a long line of witnesses to prove first-degree murder. Among them: Karl Eucker, the Ambassador's assistant maitre d'hótel, who was shaking Kennedy's hand at the moment he was shot and was the first to grab Sirhan. He had described the shooting to the grand jury as "very deliberate." Two of Kennedy's companions, former L.A. Ram Lineman Roosevelt Grier, who wrestled with Sirhan, and Decathlon Champion Rafer Johnson, who knocked the pistol from his grasp, should be on hand, as well as Author George Plimpton...
Claiming that publicity of his troubles might adversely affect his client, Cooper attempted to get the Sirhan trial postponed until he cleared up his own case, but was overruled by Judge Walker. Cooper is expected to stay on as Sirhan's chief counsel, relegating his personal crisis to off-hours. Even so, it seemed unlikely that the trial could be concluded in less than two months...